Mainstream Recognition Quotes

Well, Jon Hamm isn't a real celebrity.

When independent films break through and actually make it into any level of mainstream-ness or get seen by people or find a life actually in theaters, it's extraordinary. And it doesn't happen that often.

We want to be considered a band, like Maroon 5 or Coldplay.

Really, I've been working forever, just doing music, and then all of a sudden, out of the blue, everybody is just on it.

Lilith Fair was a great experience for us the first time we played it. We were... not a new band, but a new band as far as mainstream kind of airplay or success.

I don't want to be the country's best-kept boxing secret. I want to cross over from being a boxer on the back pages to the front pages and become the big superstar I deserve to be.

Mainstream success is important - that's probably anathema to an indie publication like Pitchfork, but it's what I believe having experienced it personally.

There are no trans roles, and if there are, they go to Jared Leto or Eddie Redmayne or Elle Fanning... Will there ever come a point where I could play a woman in a realistic, naturalistic drama and have there not be the word 'trans' in the script?

When I started college, I wrote a song 'Pee Jaun,' with a friend. I never intended to make mainstream music, but that song did really well and I got some recognition.

I think the thing that really started setting my career on the course that it's on is when I did '1000 Cats' on 'Funny or Die Presents' on HBO. That's what I feel like kind of got me a little bit more into the system.

I think commercial success is really important. It means there are more people listening, and you're affecting the zeitgeist more. If only a hundred people know you exist, it's harder to get your message across.

It would be awesome to stay popular, but if I was only an underground artist, I would be okay with that.

I think it's all independent films. There aren't any! If they were looking for me when I was making Polyester, then it'd be perfect, but they're not. I'm not looking for that. TV is much bigger and better now; far more people see it.

There is always the underground rapper people enjoy, and you want to see him come up. That's kind of how it is in wrestling.

When I first broke out, everyone was like, 'OK, so is this a joke?' They had to wait until I sold out shows before newspapers started writing about it.

Commercial record has never interested me. It's amazing I was in a band like The Police that had such phenomenal commercial success. Part of what made The Police what it was was that we didn't all come in with obvious mainstream musical tastes. We were a rock band and somehow we had to make rock music, but it was informed by a lot of things outside of the mainstream for sure.

Before 'Bake Off,' frankly, if you'd asked most people on the bus if they'd ever heard of me, it would probably only have been those aged over 55. But if they were 15, they wouldn't have, and that's the difference with 'Bake Off' - it's loved across the generations.

I'm not heart-broken if I don't have a hit. But I guess a hit would help. It makes the money go up a bit.

I really felt like I finally made it. Having your first fake pregnancy rumor. It was really awesome. I feel like it's part of what happens in this business, but that's a real one. That's a cool one to get.

All comic-book artists secretly want a successful television or movie project because of the wider audience.

Paintin they own pictures then they crop me in But I will remain where the top begins

I figured the songs wouldn't make much of a splash. I didn't think 'Take Me To Church' would play on the radio or get in the charts, and I didn't think about dealing with a global audience.

Beethoven can't really be great because his picture isn't on a bubble gum card.

As soon as anybody does one of my songs, I rejoice. This particular case of all these great singers doing my work - the implications are very rich and the temptation to think of the outcome of these masses of the mainstream injecting my work into the marketplace, it's a very sweet speculation.

It's never been our intention to sell millions of albums, but if our message touches that many people, then so be it.